Text and Audio Simplification: Human vs. ChatGPT.

Text and audio simplification to increase information comprehension are important in healthcare. With the introduction of ChatGPT, evaluation of its simplification performance is needed. We provide a systematic comparison of human and ChatGPT simplified texts using fourteen metrics indicative of text difficulty. We briefly introduce our online editor where these simplification tools, including ChatGPT, are available. We scored twelve corpora using our metrics: six text, one audio, and five ChatGPT simplified corpora (using five different prompts). We then compare these corpora with texts simplified and verified in a prior user study. Finally, a medical domain expert evaluated the user study texts and five, new ChatGPT simplified versions. We found that simple corpora show higher similarity with the human simplified texts. ChatGPT simplification moves metrics in the right direction. The medical domain expert's evaluation showed a preference for the ChatGPT style, but the text itself was rated lower for content retention.